Lots of Knitting!

 Hi all -

I've been knitting up a storm lately, so I have a lot to share! We actually got down to freezing at my home last night, so I might get to enjoy more of my knitted items soon. Fall is in the air, but I'm sure the dog days of summer will be back soon!

For my birthday month, I really concentrated on finishing my Birthday Bliss shawl designed by Amy Gunderson. I was excited to get it finished before the end of August! Here is the finished shawl:

Birthday Bliss

I should block it, but I can still use it as a large scarf if I never get around to that. I hate blocking, especially large items like this! But blocking really does make the lace shine and will get rid of some of the rolling that I'm getting on one end.

Finishing my birthday shawl inspired me to start a new project. (I don't need to start any new projects, but have to follow the mojo....) A lot of the projects that I get as kits, like this shawl, come with lots of small balls of yarn and end up with lots of small leftovers:

Project Leftovers

All of these leftovers were starting to bother me, so I decided to start knitting a Habitation Throw designed by Helen Stewart. This is an easy-to-knit pattern that allows you to throw in whatever spare pieces of yarn you have. Here is where I am so far:

Habitation Throw

I'm really enjoying seeing some of the scraps disappear, although the pile doesn't seem to get any smaller. The pattern has you connect the pieces of yarn using a technique called the "magic knot." I found that some of the yarn I had couldn't handle the magic loop, so I've switched to just holding the old and new yarn together for 10-20 stitches when I am transitioning between yarns. This will save me from having to weave in a million ends when I'm finished with the throw and isn't noticeable in the stitching. The yarns that I had the trouble with were what are called "singles". These are single-ply yarns without any twist. Although they are strong when pulling on the yarn, I found that yarn would easily break when I put a tight knot in it. If I were using all plied yarns, I would probably stick with the magic loop technique since it allows you to get all but a couple of inches of each yarn into the blanket.

 Another project I worked on is the Laxo Worsted hat designed by Laura Nelkin:

Laxo Worsted

This hat knits up quickly and is very warm with the fold-over brim. The faux cables look fancy, but they are very easy to do and don't require a cable needle.

I also picked up and made some progress on my Hring Scarf, also designed by Laura Nelkin:

Hring Scarf

I have a love/hate relationship with this scarf. I think the pattern is beautiful and the yarn is soft and feels wonderful once it's knit up. However, I find the yarn a bear to work with. The yarn has an uneven consistency (that is, it's thicker in some places and thinner in others) and it has what I would call slugs throughout. It also kind of sticks to itself when knit together. When you add my tight knitting style to the inconsistencies and the stickiness, you get knitting that is very hard to read (when looking at the stitches I've made, it's hard to tell which stitch is of which type) and very hard to unknit. So mistakes are hard to fix. So, I'm actually thinking of punting this project. I just can't decide if the final product is worth the trouble. I'll put it aside for a while again before making the final decision.

In place of working on the Hring Scarf, I started working on the Otayski headband designed by Laura Nelkin:

Otayski

I'm enjoying working on this much more! The yarn feels so good in my hands and you can read every stitch you make! This month is Laura's K(n)it-along where you can win prizes for working on her kits, of which I have plenty! So I wanted to join in and make some progress.

I've also made some good progress on my After the Storm Cardigan designed by Kelly Fowler. You can actually tell that it's a sweater now:

After the Storm Cardigan

I've connect the fronts to the back under the arms, so am now just knitting back and forth for the body. This is a lot of knitting because I'm a larger person and this sweater is designed to be worn with 12" of positive ease. That means that you make the size of sweater that is 12" larger around than your measurements. That's a lot of knitting with fingering weight yarn! But this yarn is really soft and beautiful and I'm loving it! It's from Crafty That Way and is dyed to order. I'm finding that the color matches perfectly between skeins so I don't have to alternate skeins or do anything to hide transitions between skeins. And the brown is a beautiful, rich milk chocolate color that I'm loving! It may take me a while to finish this sweater, but I know already that I'm going to love it when it's done!

Finally, my Habitation Throw inspired me to do some more work on my Witchful Thinking cowl designed by Amy Gunderson.

Witchful Thinking

 This is another one of those advent calendar type projects that gives you a little ball of yarn or a prize each day. This was from Halloween last year and I got busy and put it aside. I decided that I wanted to finish this up and throw the leftover yarn in the pile for my throw (or for another throw down the road).

So, you can see I've got plenty keeping me busy! I hope everyone is enjoying the end of summer and the start of fall!

Nancy

I'm 60!

 Hi all -

It's been a long and busy year, and I'm finally getting around to writing another blog post. It's been a very busy year. Our little company was acquired by Google on Dec 1 and I've spent a lot of this time working every spare hour to get our system to run in their cloud. I got the initial work done in mid-June so have had more time for other stuff this summer. But I never got around to writing about any of it, so decided that I should write today since it's my 60th birthday. Boy, does time fly!

To get back into things, I worked on a lot of small projects. I started with the Rosemary Cowl by Alison Green:

Rosemary Cowl

Then I made the Permafrost Cowl by Rachel Brockman, which is shaped to protect your skin where your coat opens:

Permafrost Cowl

Permafrost Cowl

I had a lot of yarn left over from the Permafrost Cowl, so I decided to make a Fernhill Hat by Kate Gagnon Osborn:

Fernhill Hat

Fernhill Hat

I also made the Bridgette by Jane Richmond:

Bridgette

I made these Mosaic Dish Towels by Universal Yarns:

Mosaic Dish Towels

and made an extra towel with the remaining yarn:

I made these Colorful Cloths by Amy Gunderson:

Colorful Cloths

and made a couple of extra dishcloths with the leftovers:

I made the Embark Shawlette by Becky Dahlberg:

Embark Shawlette

Embark Shawlette

I made the Orchid Cowl by Jo Strong:

Orchid Cowl Detail

Orchid Cowl

All of these projects were from the Jimmy Beans Wool Accessory Club. I really enjoy this club because you get a new, fairly small project each month with interesting patterns and a variety of wool. You also get similar knit and crochet patterns each month. So far I'm just doing the knit projects, but I do want to learn to crochet, too.

I also started knitting the Flowla shawl by Laura Nelkin. The is the July Lola's Choice project. Laura decided to do a mini mystery knit-along for this project: the pattern was divided into 4 parts and we received a new part each week. I finished the first two parts:

Flowla

After that, I got a bit bored with this pattern and got tired of knitting with cotton yarn, which has no give. So I started working on my After the Storm Cardigan by Kelly Fowler:

After the Storm Cardigan

It's hard to tell, but this is the upper back of the cardigan. The pattern has narrow stripes of color, and, if you look closely, you can see that I just finished my first stripe, which is purple.

Finally, a couple of years ago I purchased the Birthday Box from Jimmy Beans Wool. This is like an advent calendar for your birthday month. I thought my 60th birthday was the perfect time to work on this! This is the box:

Every day you get a little surprise or a small ball of yarn to create the accompanying shawl project:

The project is the Birthday Bliss shawl by Amy Gunderson. There are knit and crochet versions of the pattern and I'm working on the knit version. So far, I've kept up to date and here is yesterday's progress:

Birthday Bliss

Birthday Bliss Day 11 Close-up

That's all of the knitting I've been doing. It looks like a lot, but the projects were small it's been a while.

Some of you are probably also wondering about Lance. He continues to do well. Amazingly, he's somewhere around 15.5 to 16 years old now! He has DM (degenerative myelopathy), so he has a lot of trouble getting around, but he can still walk, although he looks a bit drunk and sometimes needs help getting up. Otherwise, he's amazingly healthy and seems happy and comfortable. He gets acupuncture every other week to help him keep going. It's nice because his vet does the acupuncture, so we also talk about all aspects of his health while we're there. It really eases my mind knowing that he's getting such great care!!

That's it for now. I hope everyone is having a great summer!!

Nancy